


Side Effects May Include

by gw12



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:29:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gw12/pseuds/gw12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The third week of November Jack Zimmermann admits to himself that he cannot sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Side Effects May Include

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StalkerSidekick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StalkerSidekick/gifts).



> Thanks to Sunfair for the beta.

The third week of November Jack Zimmermann admits to himself that he cannot sleep. He stares at the three glass plaques of his captaincy on the top shelf of his bookcase, and rules out the noise of the neighboring lacrosse fraternity as the source of his insomnia.

It affects his play. They've been winning games despite him. They beat Quinnipiac last Friday solely thanks to Chowder’s reflexes, which produced splits at the oddest moments. And on Saturday, their blue line was the best Jack had seen, with Poindexter and Nurse falling into sync despite their arguing, and Ransom and Holster nearly decapitating a forward on the breakaway with an eerily timed double-check. Shitty led the third line with all the authority that a senior should, and Bittle...well, as long as Bittle didn’t look completely green at the end of his shifts, Jack called that a personal victory.

But Jack loses a faceoff against Princeton in the 3rd period of Saturday's game, and gets a minor for tripping out of frustration. And--of course--Princeton converts, because all the tape Jack had watched the night before predicted they would. And like that, because of Jack, they lose 4-3. It's sloppy.

At Monday practice, after Jack lays into Dex and Nursey for bickering in the neutral zone and then turns on Ransom and Holster for laughing too much at the freshmen on the line change, Shitty suggests that Jack cheer the fuck up. Jack wants to tell Shitty to shut the fuck up, but Shitty skates up and pulls Jack down into a one-armed hug. "Cheer the fuck up or get more fucking sleep or get fucking laid or something--you're being like, Level 83, holographic pre-season Jack and it's harshing everyone's mellow. Help me pick up the pylons."

So Jack skates from orange cone to orange cone with his lips in a thin line.

\- - -

Bittle lives across the hall. Most nights, Jack hears Bittle come up the stairs and walk up to the end of the hall and pause, a shadow appearing under Jack's door. And then scuffling as Bittle opens up his own door and disappears into his room, the sound of something like Britney Spears? (Avril Lavigne?) spilling out, muted. Sometimes Bittle will work up the courage to knock on his door. ("Oh, hi Jack. Don't mean to bother you, but there's pie downstairs if you want any." "Oh, I was just wondering if you wanted any soup? It's so chilly in the hallway with that draft--" "I made chicken for dinner since they apparently don't know how to make it in the dining halls.")

Four AM on a Tuesday means that Jack has to wake up in two hours. He prays for one REM cycle at least, because he's finished the draft for his midterm essay and there's only so many NHL highlights he can withstand before the gears on the anxiety-insomnia-anxiety vicious cycle start whirring.

He opens the door when Bittle knocks on it like it's 4 in the afternoon and not 4 in the morning, lets Bittle babble through a long explanation as to why he's awake ("light under your door--noticing for a while--I've had trouble sleeping too") and closes the door after Bittle comes back upstairs with two mugs of tea. They fall asleep half-sitting in Jack's bed, the alarm on Jack's desk welcoming the sunrise from miles over Boston.

Friday, they lose the tea, and the next Tuesday Bittle falls asleep on his shoulder. Thursday night before the game against Harvard, Jack wakes up with Bitty hugging his waist and that night Jack has a hat trick.

\- - -

The important thing about ruts, Coach Murray says in between Thursday's scrimmages, is that once you've moved past one, take note of what got you out. It's measured reflection--sport psychology stuff—learning from the past without dwelling on it. Jack considers this as skates down the bench after his second goal against Yale, muttering _Let's keep it up boys_ and at the end of the bench locking eyes with Bittle.

Two weeks into their sleeping arrangement and in the dressing room after practice, Bittle says that he misses being on Jack's line and his hand lingers on Jack's elbow and brushes down Jack's forearm.

Bittle's back and backside are pressed up against him around 1AM and Jack's checked to make sure the door to the bathroom and Shitty's room was locked about 3 times around midnight. Around 1:15AM Bittle turns around and snakes his hand under Jack's arm and lets their noses touch. Bittle notes quietly, sleepily, hand cupping Jack's face, how the corners of Jack's eyes seem to droop less when he isn't worried. Jack breathes and watches Bittle's eyes close.

Jack pulls him close and kisses him until 1:30AM.

The scout from Toronto jokingly asks if Jack's trying to score at least three points in every game until he graduates and Jack laughs it off. But then the Boston Globe contacts him for an interview, because apparently having 3-or-more point games--three, four, and last Thursday against Clarkson makes it five--hasn't been done since 1986. _The Samwell State of Hockey_ , it reads, with a 3-inch picture of Jack on a breakaway in black and white. And when Jack's on SportsCenter after their game against Dartmouth he wonders why he hadn't figured out how to get out of a rut sooner.

\- - -

Jack knows that Eric Bittle has a maternal streak in him a mile wide. Under the thrill of Jack's recent success, Bittle is half-relieved that Jack is simply being taken care of, and half-amused because he now believes himself to have trading chips.

“Hmph, with that attitude, maybe, I'll just sleep in my room tonight.“

“Go ahead, I don't need you until Thursday and Friday.“

“You're _awful_.“

“If you want us to lose, go ahead, sleep in your room.“

“So you're admitting it's me?--that I'm helping?“

“Sleeping is helping me; you're just helping me sleep.“

“Jack Zimmermann. I'm doing things for you that NyQuil could never.”

Jack laughs at him and Bittle stands at the edge of his bed, pouting, arms akimbo.

Jack wakes up briefly to hear the lax bros across the street chanting during their initiation, then a loud crash from the attic that dissolves into laughter. But he holds Bittle and is drowsy. Bittle is completely under the covers save for a tuft of blonde hair that trembles when Jack runs a hand over Bittle's shoulder. He blinks, fooled by the darkness in his room. Bittle is smaller and his hair darker, but they curl into each other the same way he and Parse did.

The Sunday of their roadie, Shitty shoves his iPhone under Jack's nose and makes Jack watch the highlight clip of Samwell's number 1 weaving through Colgate's defense, a line of poetic motion punctuated with a mean little wrister to the short side. After the third time, Lardo eventually takes his phone away.

\- - -

One night around 11 o'clock, Bittle crawls over him, straddling Jack's thighs and kissing soft and warm and wet into Jack's lips. Jack cups the back of Bittle's head and lets his arm wrap around Bittle's waist, eyes fluttering closed. He sighs when Bittle starts kissing down his neck. Two hands run up Jack's stomach muscles and then his Samwell Hockey T-shirt is off and shoved into the corner where his bed meets the wall and Bittle is dropping kisses on his chest. The first time they saw each other naked outside of the locker room was yesterday, so Jack asks:

"Bittle?"

Bittle sits up on Jack's thighs, hands feathering over the hair on Jack's chest.

"You wanna take off your underwear?"

Jack watches Bittle flush. He says “oh”, quietly and then his only request is that if he does, Jack has to call him Bitty. And Jack chuckles and says, “Okay, Bitty”, and watches Bitty's thumbs tuck under the band of his boxer briefs and helps tug them off his feet. Bitty's legs are hugging his left waist and he's in nothing but a dark red Samwell Hockey t-shirt and he's pink and warm. Jack spreads his hands on Bitty's ass and he hums into the kiss when Bitty wraps his arms around Jack's neck.

Later, Jack wakes up to a rustle at his door—his heart beat spikes—and then settles when he remembered how he had locked it. (Twice.)

He runs his hands through his hair and a discomfort starts to buzz in the back of his head. Embarrassment would be somewhat of a deterrent, yes, and there's an implicit violation of his team's trust that he's been excusing himself from considering. How immature would it seem and  how naive would say, Shitty, have to be to believe Jack when he would tell them all: this whole thing with Bittle was helping me on the ice. He thinks of the rumors that would start to bubble too, once it trickled out of the team and into campus, eventually fueling the gossip that always haunted Jack like a cloud. _It's Kent Parson all over again_ , he can imagine people saying, all too familiar. _And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but there's a time and place for that, if you're of that persuasion. Never on the team. Don't eat where you shit._

And on the other hand, Jack thinks about getting a contract in Los Angeles or Anaheim or Tampa Bay and of dragging Bitty into something that was never meant to be in the first place. And here Bitty slept, probably dreaming about all the good he was doing for Jack, five minutes away from having the alarm wake him.

When Hall blows the whistle to end Thursday practice, Jack skates up to Bittle who is beaming after scoring on Chowder in the shootout. A few words later, that smile fades from Bittle's face and Jack trudges to the dressing room, the stench of sweat and padding wafting out of his glove where he yanks it off. “You don't have to come over tonight” still rings in his ears.

\- - -

Once Jack figures out the defense RIT has set in place specially for him, it's not long before he sets up his left and right wing to part the zone like the Red Sea, leaving Samwell to dump the puck right between the dots. Five of the shots on goal in the 2nd period are Jack's and two of those five go in—one top shelf and the other five hole. In what would later be declared as “second act heroics” by the sophomore hockey beat reporter Evan Steinberg, Jack extends his point streak to seven games and meets the assistant general manager of the Bruins for dinner on Sunday.

Before that, however, Ransom and Holster demand that Jack's second hattie of the year be capped off with:

“The Kegster to End All Kegsters.”

“They'll make a movie about this party.”

“Like fucking Morgan Freeman-narrated documentary about how this party changed the course of mankind.”

“This will be a scene in the direct-to-blu ray movie about the Life and Times of Jack Laurent Zimmermann: _Hockey Man_.”

"These are tears on my face."

But Jack doesn't drink much, if at all. So after half a can of Keystone which he nestles in the space between the stairway and the door to the basement, heads up to his bedroom. There is a baseball player huddled up against Bittle's door with a very pretty brunette, and Jack congratulates him on the other team's win before advising them to scram. At midnight, Jack pulls on an old pair of Under Armour shorts that serve as his pajamas and crawls into bed. There's a clock on Jack's desk, and precisely three minutes later by its count, Bittle comes up the stairs and the floors of the Haus creak as he takes the seven steps required to reach his room.

And there is no pause. No shadow under Jack's door.

\- - -

Winter break hits and Bittle goes home to Georgia, and Jack gets sleep in Quebec. He waits for the right moment to Skype Bittle, just to say “hey”. His mom worries about him making friends and keeping them, and having Jack Skype each of his teammates is something she seems to have written on her mental list of My Son's Emotional Well-Being. “Why not Skype Shitty or Eric after going out to the rink this morning?” she asks, handing Jack a thermos of coffee. It's still 6 AM and there's a hockey bag over Jack's shoulder. “Or I'm doing a talk in Toronto. Didn't you say you were going to visit Justin? Oh—or Kent. He lives near Adam, doesn't he? He called me just the other day to check up on you, you know?”

Jack Skypes Bittle for 20 minutes later that day. Bittle spends most of the conversation going on about these new crusts he's been dying to try out since September—but Lord help him if he was going to attempt any of those in the Haus—which, although of course very lovely and quaint and the birth of many a delicious pie, was not the ideal environment for his baking experiments, you see. Jack nods, and gives Bittle a vague update on his current NHL negotiations. It's nice. Before they say goodbye, Bittle says it feels good to talk to him again.

In less than half a year, Jack would have a bachelor's degree from Samwell University and an entry-level contract with a team in the National Hockey League. His dad sees this as a time for celebration. They still build a rink in the back of their property, even though Jack doesn't skate there as much as he used to when he was home during juniors. Nevertheless, some of the kids in the neighborhood still use it and Jack's dad even keeps the stadium lights on past midnight, despite the fact they glare into his parents room. While flooding the tarp, and after Jack explains how he thinks the Habs might be perfect for him since they're on the rise, his father says in French:

“Jack. When you go and talk to these GMs...and meet the guys on the teams...Really try to picture yourself there, okay? I want you to be on a winning team, of course, and to go for the cup. But consider yourself and your sacrifices. You can even take another year off if you need time to decide; it's your life. Because you can be on a winning team and still be miserable, believe me.”

Jack's not sure if he actually believes him, but he's also never hoisted 35 pounds of nickel over his head.

\- - -

It's 1 AM and Jack can't breathe. He sits up in bed, eyes wide and confused before that familiar terror washes over him— _I can't breathe because I'm having a panic attack. I'm having a panic attack because I had a bad dream. I might actually die this time; I'm sure of it._ He's in that weird state of mind where he's completely afraid and also in a half-conscious stupor. Night terrors would be kinder. At least he wouldn't have to move and there would be no struggle.

When he gets his breathing back he realizes how cold his bed is.

Five minutes later his forehead is pressed up against the glass of his shower. The water runs over his neck and down his back and patters at his feet. Guilt is only two shades lighter than that vague and unsettling feeling of not quite knowing the expanse of his certain impending failures, so he jerks off. It sometimes helps. He's thinks about Eric Bittle with nothing but a Samwell hockey t-shirt in his bed, rutting up against him, getting Jack hard through the old pair of Under Armour shorts. Jack shudders, breath shallowing, and goes back to that moment, remembering how good it had felt hearing Bittle's whining in his ear and how Jack arched into him. Bittle had tugged down his shorts and suddenly there was the warmth and friction of Bittle’s cock against his. Jack had held his ass and urged him on until Bittle came, clenching at his biceps. Jack came too, later, and as he strokes himself in the shower he remembers Bittle's hand—tentative and soft bringing him there, shaking.

Now Jack pants and drops the diverter on the shower faucet with a clank, warm water gushing at his feet. Bittle had brushed Jack's bangs back afterward, and chirped him about something he can’t remember. Even when he kissed Parse, Jack took note of how Parse's teeth tugged playfully at his lip. With Bittle, he thought of nothing.

\- - -

There's a New Year's Party at one of Mario's places in Montreal and a lot of hockey people are there. Jack's mom is talking to Janet about something (probably about him and Paulina and how they used to hang out so much when they were younger--we all should do more get-togethers like this) and Jack talks to a few people who know a few GMs or own rinks or played for teams, all with his dad a few feet away or with his dad's hand on his shoulder. His dad is beaming. Sure Jack isn’t in the NHL yet, but did you see the sports section of the Boston Globe? He broke a record. We're all excited for him to play.

Mario asks him if he's considered the Penguins and Jack honestly says he has.

"You'd fit in--you know the team we are. It's one that is very focused. It'd be a good place.”

Jack knows it would but it suddenly seems too far.

Five minutes to midnight, Jack ducks out so that no one tries to kiss him.

2015, after the ball drops in New York, Jack gets two texts:

Kent Parson  
I'll be in Montreal tomorrow. Let's meet up.

Eric Bittle  
Happy New Year, Jack. :)

-

Spring semester starts with a short losing skid for which Jack only blames himself. In back to back games, he inexplicably gives up the puck and the errors mutate into breakaways which leave Chowder scrambling back, angling on the rush in vain. In completely unorthodox goalie fashion, Chowder starts apologizing for the second goal as though it were in any way his fault, but only manages to stutter out “hey I'll stop them next--” before Jack tells him to shutup.

But they qualify for the playoffs because despite their current losses, they had won enough earlier in their season. They win a game but Jack is held to no points. He starts thinking about ruts again.

On the eve of the East Regional Finals, the Haus is quiet. It's midnight. They will all file into a bus to drive to Rhode Island in less than eight hours, in their game day jackets that had _Samwell_ -(crossed hockey sticks)- _Hockey_ emblazoned on the breast.

And then there's footsteps and then there's a shadow under his door.

“Oh, hi Jack. Don't mean to bother you.” Bittle's voice is a whisper and he meets Jack's eyes with a steady gaze, but toes at the floorboards of the hallway with his socks. “There's pie downstairs whenever you want any.”

Jack stands in the doorway and for a moment wonders how big Bittle's heart could possibly be. Actually, nevermind—he doesn't trust himself with that information. To know would be to tamper, and Bittle's magnanimity is something close to a natural phenomenon. With his door already edging closed, Jack tells Bittle that he isn't hungry.

-

There is something to be said about the hockey player's unwavering belief in the Pre-Game Ritual. Science has yet to prove its efficacy, partly because empirical reasoning has little place in a locker room, and partly because no hockey player would submit his formalized procedure to be fiddled with as an independent variable.

The morning of their playoff game, Jack doesn't expect a good luck call from his dad since non-essential communication with family members is verboten according to the Zimmermann pre-game commandments. He had already seen his parents the night before, when he stopped by their hotel room for one last minute talk to reassure him he’d be okay. His mom kept saying that he’d do great and “it wasn't the end of the world” and Jack took a deep breath and had a moment of startling déjà vu. But texts are fine, even though Jack buries his phone in his backpack exactly seven hours before puck drop and will decidedly not touch it again until he takes the tape off his stick at the end of the 3rd period.

Jack steadily whirls a roll of white tape around his stick and places it on the left side of the stall he's been assigned. With the bottom half of his uniform on—skates, socks, shorts-- he wanders over to Chowder's stall where he chats about strategy with the netminder before slapping his pads, just like he’s done countless times this season and had before with Johnson. He puts on his shoulder pads first and then his elbow pads, and pulls on his jersey right as Hall and Murray come in to announce the starting line up and give them one last rally. Then, just as the roar of the crowd begins to pick up, trickling in each time the locker room door opens, Jack gives the room a solid _“Come on, boys!”_ which is met with a chorus of hooting and hollering. From there, it's all shouting and Jack makes sure he's the last one out of the locker room so he can be the last one on the ice. In the tunnel, Shitty claps him on the back and they knock helmets and from there it's just hockey.

Except then there's Bitty. He steps out of line for just a moment and no one really notices, everyone in a red jersey bouncing, focusing on their cue at _AND NOW....FROM SAMWELL, MASSACHUSETTS--_

Bitty hugs him. Jack has no time to react. Bitty's helmet nudges up the plexiglass of his Bauer face shield, and Bitty's gloves grip at the number stitched to Jack's back. Everything about this is wrong; Bitty has single-handedly thrown everything out the window. He might as well have put his stick on the right side of the stall. Yet, for the first time ever before hitting the ice, Jack's heart is calm.

It's brief and Bitty says something quiet into his shoulder, but it's lost in the fabric of Jack's jersey and obliterated by the _AND NOW..._

-

Shame, also known as the awareness of one's own inadequacy, is Jack's least favorite emotion and it rolls over him in waves as they carry their bags out to the buses on Commercial Street. Shitty's the only one brave enough to get near him--not brave enough to say anything--but Jack lets him put a hand on his shoulder and lets Shitty sit across from him in the back row on the bus. Jack glances up at Bitty as Bitty walks down the aisle and watches him duck into a seat in the front near Lardo.

They're on I-95 when he gets a text from Mario saying they should talk whenever he's ready. Jack falls asleep on the bus.

They get a warm welcome from the entire campus and they meet the president of Samwell and members of the Samwell Athletics Board, and they get a nice dinner because this is the furthest Samwell Men's Hockey has ever made it in the history of the department. Jack gets honored into the Samwell Hockey Hall of Fame for leading them there. By that time devastation has muted to disappointment and and anger to a quiet guilt, so when Jack smiles at the end of the year banquet, it is an apologetic one for his teammates –Shitty, Ransom, Holster, Dex, Chowder, Nursey, and Lardo—people for whom he wanted to do more.

When he gets back to his room in the early afternoon, he's surprised to find Bittle there, sitting on his bed in the suit from the banquet. Jack says hey as he walks over to his bookshelf and places his newest plaque on the top shelf.

Bitty says all of the things that he wanted to say when the clock ran down to zero, as they walked off the ice, in the dressing room, on the bus, the night they had all trudged into the Haus, during the kegster that went down, the next morning when he had made breakfast, the entire Monday when Jack, Shitty, Rans, Holster, and he had ditched class to go to the movies. Bitty tells him how stupid it is that Jack is beating himself up about this because it's not his fault—it was never his fault-- and they did well--they did good--they made it to the NCAA finals for Christ's sake and he knows that Jack has goals and that’s fair but the way he's treating himself isn't and the way he has always treated himself isn't and it hurts. Bitty's words disappear in his gasps and tears and Jack goes to him. He wishes Bitty had said all this the night they didn't fall asleep for the first time.

"After this you won't need me. And you know, I guess you didn't really need me this whole time. But if I were a good luck charm--"

 _A good luck charm?_ How could he think--

Jack looks into wet brown eyes and remembers he's complete shit at saying how he feels. There's something good in front of him, and it might not have been there if they had won.

-

It's early May and Jack wakes up in Bitty's bed sometime around noon. Bitty wakes a little while later, yawning. Bitty burrows, head sinking back under the sheets, knees tucking, one arm across Jack's chest. When he finishes, his face is buried in Jack's shoulder and only a blond tuft of hair pokes out. Bitty's voice, quiet and soft and still half-asleep, asks Jack if he dreamt of anything.

His arms wrap around Bitty and Jack spends the next few moments telling him about a dream he had.

  
  



End file.
